2-3 seconds is plenty of time for Angela to have drawn 5 cards assuming his attention wasn't completely focused on her deck.

Let's think about what's supposed to happen here.

Angela and Nigel both agree that Banefire for 5 resolves.

From Angela's point of view, Banefire's 5 damage is prevented, and she should be drawing 5 cards because 5 damage was prevented.

From Nigel's point of view, Swans has 5 damage on it, and dies, and he should move it from the battlefield to the graveyard.

As Nigel is reaching for his Swans, Angela draws 5 cards. These two actions take a very different amount of time, the time it takes for me to reach for my card to put it into the grave is not even remotely close to the time it takes me to draw 5 cards. It's not a 2-3 second window that exists, because it doesn't take that long to pick up your Swans and plop it into your yard.

Nigel may have been thinking about his next turn, considering the board state, thinking about lunch or even reading the swans as he moved them to the graveyard and then realizing that drawing cards was an error. In any of these cases he's brought the issue to a judge's attention in a reasonable amount of time. The fact that she's got five cards in hand before he's been able to process and vocalize the error doesn't automatically make it his fault.

Alternately are we going accuse Angela of cheating because she wasn't stopping Nigel putting the Swans in his graveyard?

I'm not sure you could assess Nigel for USC-Cheating even if he had been hoping she'd make this error.

Well first of all, remember, from Angela's point of view, depending on her understanding of the ruling, she might believe that Swans of Bryn Argoll survives the Banefire, and thus would have no reason to stop Nigel from moving Swans to the graveyard. But remember, Nigel never touched the card, according to the problem statement. He has yet to make any indication that Swans dies. This is why I believe it is important to ask Angela what she expected to have happen after casting Banefire.

Yes, Nigel is not automatically at fault, and I'm not saying immediately that he's cheating.

We can't know he's cheating, because we haven't investigated. I think that this scenario really needs an investigation, because something doesn't add up.

No, he wasn't moving Swans from the battlefield to the graveyard, because 5 cards were drawn as he was reaching for the card. Does this seem weird yet?

In the time it took Nigel to reach for Swans of Bryn Argoll, they agreed that Banefire resolved, Angela put Banefire into the graveyard and managed to draw 5. Doesn't something seem amiss?

He's not taking an action and he's not doing anything illegal (Angela is taking actions here) - allowing an opponent to make a mistake is not illegal, failing to point it out is (FtMG) therefore cheating can't apply and he's called attention to the error immediately so I don't see anything else you could assess him for.

Noticing an infraction from your opponent and then calling attention to it when it would give them a harsher penalty is Cheating.

The most common way for players to draw cards at Competitive REL, in my experience, is by laying out the cards they're about to draw, and then putting them into their hand. It is entirely possible that Angela didn't do this, which, again, is why it's important to investigate, because these details matter.

Let's say, hypothetically, if we investigate and find out that Angela lays out 5 cards from her library onto the table, and Nigel says nothing, and doesn't move Swans of Bryn Argoll from the battlefield to the graveyard. Angela picks up her 5 cards, and that's when Nigel has something to say?

That doesn't seem fishy to you? I'd be asking Nigel some questions at this point.

Originally posted by Eric Lee:

Noticing an infraction from your opponent and then calling attention to it when it would give them a harsher penalty is Cheating.

The most common way for players to draw cards at Competitive REL, in my experience, is by laying out the cards they're about to draw…

There isn't an infraction until she puts the cards in her hand - so no matter how she went about drawing them (on table first, straight to hand) he's not cheating by allowing her to commit the infraction then calling a judge, he's not letting the infraction ride till it's worse for her he's waiting for it to be committed.

While not pleasant and certainly behavior I personally would discourage the IPG doesn't require players to help their opponent play the game correctly.

“Fishing for Game-Loss” suddenly sprang to my mind when i read the comments of others. Not preventing her from drawing cards and then instantly calling the judge is indeed weird.

Either he wasn't sure himself, then he would first say.. “Wait, are you allowed to draw cards?”. He would say so probably only after she draw one or more cards. Result: She still drew extra cards - GPE-DEC, Game-Loss.

But this instantanious “Woah Judge” shows he knew the interaction and her reaching for the deck he realized she doesn't. While this clearly feels unfair I don't think that it changes much. It is a fishy move for sure but we can't really punish players for being “jerks” within the rules.

Originally posted by Marc Shotter:

There isn't an infraction until she puts the cards in her hand - so no matter how she went about drawing them (on table first, straight to hand) he's not cheating by allowing her to commit the infraction then calling a judge, he's not letting the infraction ride till it's worse for her he's waiting for it to be committed.

While not pleasant and certainly behavior I personally would discourage the IPG doesn't require players to help their opponent play the game correctly.

Note that what follows assumes that we have investigated and found what Eric Lee describes at the end of his post above.

Cheating is:

A person breaks a rule defined by the tournament documents,…, or notices an offense committed in his or her match and does not call attention to it.

Additionally:
-The player must be attempting to gain an advantage from his or her action
-The player must be aware that he or she is doing something illegal

FtMGS is:

A player allows another player in the game to commit a gameplay error and does not point it out immediately. If a judge believes a player is intentionally not pointing out other players' illegal actions, either for his or her own advantage, or in the hope of bringing it up at a more strategically advantageous time, they should consider a USC-Cheating infraction.

Based on the bolded portions of the IPG infractions for Cheating and FtMGS, then Nigel would quite possibly be cheating (and certainly FtMGS if he isn't cheating) if he purposely allowed Angela to count out 5 cards onto the table and didn't say anything until she drew them. The reason is that Angela is clearly demonstrating intent to draw 5 cards, and Nigel does not not stop her from committing the infraction ('allows her to commit the GPE'). Though he caught it ‘quickly,’ allowing her to go all the way through the motions of counting out the cards to draw without saying anything is not calling pointing it out ‘immediately,’ since he was able to stop the infraction from occurring and did not.

So far, Nigel has broken a rule determined by the tournament documents (FtMGS) and/or noticed an offense committed by an opponent and not called attention to it (which is basically the same thing at this point).

Now we investigate further. We ask Nigel if he knows that purposely allowing an opponent to commit a GPE is against the rules. We also ask if he knows that DEC is usually punished more severely than other GPEs.

If Nigel knows both of these things, then he has undoubtedly committed USC-Cheating. If Nigel expresses any sort of ‘it’s not against the rules until she actually draws the cards, so I don't have to do anything until then,' in answer to the first question, then I would certainly assign USC-Cheating even if he did not know that DEC carries a more severe penalty, since he has waited until after Angela has committed an infraction and will receive a penalty to stop her can call a judge, when he should have stopped her from committing the infraction at all, which he could since Angela spends time clearly indicating her intent to draw cards she is not entitled to.

Many magic players also ‘narrate’ how a sequence of actions plays out, particularly through effects that do multiple things in a row. If, on investigation, we find that Angela verbalizes some form of ‘deal five to Swans, **the damage gets prevented**, draw 5,’ (**optional**) then we will certainly assess the FtMGS against Nigel, even if Angela has not counted out the five cards to draw.

Edited Andrew Keeler (July 4, 2015 08:15:02 PM)

Andrew, after your bolded part of Ftmgs there is an and, which means unless he also does what is after it the statement doesn't apply. As long as he points it out immediately he is fine.

edit:
I have it hard to find we define immediately as before it actually happens.

Edited Kyle Connelly (July 4, 2015 08:49:55 PM)

Let me step in here and stop this branch of the conversation. Whatever infraction has occurred here, it is not Cheating.

The Knowledge Pool provides you with all the information required to arrive at the correct ruling in the given scenario. If we don't say that a player intentionally violated a rule or policy, that player did not do so.

While, in general, it is healthy to have a somewhat skeptical eye toward errors by which a player could gain an advantage, it is best to simply apply Hanlon's Razor to anything we post here.

There can't be a Modern Masters Sealed PPTQ, so this situation never happened and we all got fooled
;-)

As most of the other Judges I'd rule DEC GL for it. Downgrade is not applicable.


Edit: Thanks David, didn't read that update!

Edited Johannes Wagner (July 6, 2015 12:57:38 PM)

Originally posted by Johannes Wagner:

There can't be a Modern Masters Sealed PPTQ, so this situation never happened and we all got fooled
;-)

Modern Masters 2015 Sealed is a valid format for PPTQs for PT#1 2016. You can see it at PPTQs for PT#1 2016 fact sheet http://magic.wizards.com/es/protour/pptq1st16 and latest MTR released 15th June http://wpn.wizards.com/sites/wpn/files/attachements/mtg_mtr_16jun15_en_0.pdf

Well, judges, it's time to wrap up!

As most of you correctly surmised, Angela has committed Game Play Error - Drawing Extra Cards.

Importantly, Nigel saying “Sure” to acknowledge the resolution of Banefire does not constitute confirmation of Angela's draw. Nor does the misunderstanding of the interaction of Swans' ability with that of Banefire's “If X is 5 or more” clause constitute a prior Game Rules Violation. The first thing wrong in the game is that Angela has cards in her hand that should not be there, and the identities of those cards was not known to Nigel prior to the infraction.

As such, none of the escape or downgrade conditions for Drawing Extra Cards are met, and Angela will receive a Game Loss.

We thought that this situation would trip up many more of you than it did. It's always gratifying to see the impact of an education project on display as it was this week. Thank you to everyone who participated, and we'll be back tomorrow with a new scenario.

Guess I got tripped up? :)

Would the case be different if Angela saw Nigel reach for the Swans, say “That's not dead,” then draw the cards? As we covered in the thread, even if upon investigation Angela said that she thought the Swans should still be alive, that wouldn't change the infraction from DEC. If she vocalizes her incorrect belief rather than just going straight for the cards, it doesn't seem to be that big of a difference. But does it result in a different call?

Edited Rich Marin (July 9, 2015 02:06:03 PM)

Originally posted by Rich Marin:

Guess I got tripped up? :)

Would the case be different if Angela saw Nigel reach for the Swans, say “That's not dead,” then draw the cards? As we covered in the thread, even if upon investigation Angela said that she thought the Swans should still be alive, that wouldn't change the infraction from DEC. If she vocalizes her incorrect belief rather than just going straight for the cards, it doesn't seem to be that big of a difference. But does it result in a different call?

In this particular case it shouldn't matter–the card draw is a replacement effect that happens during the resolution of Banefire, but the swans should die after the spell resolves when state-based effects are checked. The first error here is the card draw no matter what.

Just for the record.
With the new rule in place (no game loss), am I safe to assume that opponent now will get to choose 5 cards to shuffle back into the library?